Portable coal-screening rig.



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Ira/@2211072 C. S. WILLIAMSON. PORTABLE coAL SCREENING me. APPLlcmouFILED Nov. a. 19,11.

Patented Jan. 23,1917.

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- C. S. WILLIAMSON.

PORTABLE coAL SCREENING RIG.

AP*PLICATION FILED -NOV. 3. ISI l.

Patented Jan. 23,1917.

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CHARLES s. WILLIAMSON, or CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.

PORTABLE COAL-SCREENING RIG.

Application filed November 3, 1911.

To all whom t may concern:

Be it known that l, CHARLES S. 1WILLIAM- soN, a citizen of the UnitedStates, residing at Chicago, county of Cook, and State of illinois, haveinvented new and useful Improvements in Portable 'Coal-Screening Rigs,of which the following is a specication. v

It is the object of the present invention to provide a screening plantwhereby run of pile7 coal, as it is unloaded from a ship at a dock, maybe screened and sorted into a plurality of sizes and delivered direct tocars with a minimum of handling and deterioration; to provide ascreening plant adapted for loading a. plurality of cars simultaneouslywith different grades of coal, all properly screened, this plant beingmovable along the dock front so that it may be placed in convenientworking position at the side of a boat and under the traveling bridgeand grab bucket whereby the boat is being unloaded; to provide a specialarrangement of hoppers, screens and conveyers whereby run of pile coaldelivered to the main receiving hopper of the plant may be distributed,screened and ultimately delivered to loading hoppers, from whichdelivery to the cars may be made through car loaders of standardconstruction; to provide chutes and other adjuncts for taking care ofthe slack coal and delivering it to the dock, or in other ways suitablydisposing of it; and to provide electrically operated motive deviceswhereby the plant may be moved along its track at the water front andwhereby the conveyers and other movable elements of the plant may beeconomically driven.

The objects above enumerated and others of a similar nature areaccomplished by the embodiment disclosed in the accompanying drawingsand hereinafter described in detail.

Figure 1 is a side elevational view of the screening device of myinvention. Fig. Q is an elevation on the line 2 2 of Fig. 1, showing oneof the assorting coal bins with its loading spout in operation. Fig. 3is an end elevation of the loading apparatus shown in Fig. l, and Fig.4l shows the structure from the other end.

In the construction shown, the entire plant or rig is mounted on wheelsand is movable over rails 1 and 2 which may be laid along the waterfront of a dock, between the Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Jan. 23, 1917.

Serial No. 658,301.

slip and the front leg of the unloading bridge. `This trackage may havea gage of twelve (12) feet. Between this trackage and water front is arailway of standard gage, on which box cars 3 and 4 may be pushed in atthe side of the screening plant for receiving their loads of Coalsimultaneously withthe unloading of the coal from the boat subjectmatter of the present specication isV well adapted for use on a waterfront and in conjunction with a traveling unloading bridge, it may beused in other relations, as will be readily apparent to those skilled inthe art.

The screening plant is mounted on sixteen (16 track wheels 5, locatedfour at each corner 1n compensating tandem trucks. These wheels arecompensated by pin connec-v tions 6 to the main posts of the structure.A motor 7 may be mounted on one of the trucks and connected to drive thesupporting wheels with a speed of travel appropriate for shifting theplant along itstrackage as the unloading of the boat progresses. Theframework of the plant is of structural steel, including four cornermembers 8 stifened by diagonal bracing members 9, 10 and 11 andstiifened laterally by cross-braces 12 and 12 (Fig.

Run of pile coal is delivered from a grab bucket, or other suitablesource, toa fiftyton hopper 38 located at the top of the plant. Thishopper is preferably built of steel, suitably stiffened and braced bystructural shapes, and has a top opening wide enough to enable theoperator to discharge the bucket without spillage and without undue lossof time. At the base of the hopper is a feeder mechanism (not shown)which delivers the coal to a bar screen 13, having various sizes of barspacing. The feeder mechanism just mentioned may be a measuring feederof the plunger type or other approved design well known in the art, andis mounted beneath the hopper 38 for the purpose of delivering the coalto the screen 13 .at as nearly a uniform rate as is practicable.

The speed of feed of the coal is made variable so as to provide fordifferent conditions of loading. The feeder may be driven by a smallmotor housed in the cab 39k at the base of the hopper, said motor heiligalso used for other purposes as hereinafter set forth.

The lump coal delivered to screen 13 passes off the end of the screeninto a spiral spout 14, from which it enters a box-car loader 15 and isthereby distributed in the car in the well known manner.

Beneath the screen 13 there is suspended a 25-ton hopper 16 forreceiving the simili coal which has passed through the screen bars. Thissmall coal hopper 16 inrturn delivers its coal to a flieht conve 7er`which carries it to an elevator, as hereinafter set forth.

The bar screen 13 is made up in two sections, the upper section beingapproximately twice as long as the lower section and `with the barsspaced three-quarters of an inch apart.

The exact spacing of the screens is optional with the user and, as amaterial for forming the screens, either bars, wire mesh or perforatedlplates may be used.

The flight conveyer 17, indicated by the. dotted line Fig. l, isarranged over the bar screen 13 to provide. for a continuous flow of thecoal over the screen atas nearly a uniform speed as is consistent withthis class of service. The conveyer is made up of two strandsY ofsteel-roller chain, carrying steel flights or cross-bars approximatingsix feet in length. The chain travels on rollers in suitable side guidesso as to be out of the path of the coal, in accordance with commonpractice. This flight conveyer preferably runs at approximately fourhundred feet per minute and has flights of suflicient height to retardthe rush of coal when the coal reaches the lower portion of the screens.The conveyer is carried upward at 1S toward the` end of the screens topermit the lumps to pass out from beneath its strands or side chains.The conveyor then returns underneath the hopper 16 and there serves as acarrying conveyer for the fine coal which has passed through the screen153 into the hopper 16. This hopper 16 has its bottom fitted with twogates 19 and 20 of sufficient width to providefor the uniform loading ofthe flight conveyer while it passes beneath. lf this hopper has acapacity of twenty-five tons, it will enable the conveyer to continue.carrying screenings to the elevator `21 at the other end of the plant,even after the boxcar loader 15 has ceased to deliver lump coal to thecars, thereby maintainingT a balance between the screen and theelevator', which will prevent thcelevator from being worn out by runningempty during the periods of shifting earsat the loading spout.

The elevator 21, at the extreme end of the enough to admit of a gravityfeed from the adjacentend of the flight conveyer.

Coal carried up by elevator 21 is delivered through a hopper 25 to tworevolving screens 2G and Q7 of approximately five foot diameter andeighteen feet in length. These revolving screens are each covered withwoven wire mesh screening, the upper screen having` a three-quarter inchsquare mesh and the' lower screen a one and onequarter inch squaremesh.. This provides for making three sizes of coal, namely: egg coalover the end of the screen, nut coal through the one and one-quarterinch mesh and slack through the three-quarter inch mesh.

Two bins 28 and :29 are provided beneath the revolving screens forreceiving the egg and nut coal as prepared by those screens. Each ofthese bins may have a capacity of approximately forty tons and they areequipped respectively at their bottoms withV cut-off gates 30 and 31,both of which deliver to a common loading spout 32. This loading spouthas a perforated plate screen 33 of about sixteen square foot area,which takes out of the nut and egg coal such deterioration as is made indelivering from the revolving screens to the bins. After the coal passesscreen 33 it may be delivered to a Ticknor-Manier box-car loader mountedin the screening plant at an approximate distance of fifty feet from thelump coal loading spout. This will permit a car of egg or nut coal to beloaded simultaneously with the lump coal. The Ticknor-Manier box-carloader may be of standard construction and size and need nothere bedescribed.

Simultaneously with the separation of the los egg yand nut coal at therevolving screens,V

the slack coal iS delivered through screen 26 to a hopper 34 and fromthere passes to a. spout 35 which returns the slack to the dock, fromwhich point it can be loaded into -open-top cars directly, or can beagain lifted up and loaded through the run of mine hopper 12 with veilplates placed over the screens to allow the slack to pass into thebox-car loader 15.

The elevator and revolving screens may be driven in any desired manner,but preferably are driven by an electric motor housed in a cab 35@ andconnected with the elevator and with the screens through suitablereduction gearing and friction clutches. The drive for the flightconveyer 17 can advantageously be made from a motor sheltered by house89 and also used to drive the plunger feeder at the base of hopper 38.

Stairways and platforms may be pro? vided to afford easy access to thevariousV parts of the plant, as shown in Fig. l.

The box-car loader may be of the Christy type and is mounted on wheels36 arranged to operate on the twelve foot track of the plant. Electriccurrent for propelling and operating this loader is taken throughcollectors arranged to make contact with the electrical distributingsystem on the dock. The electrical distributing system on the dock is ofthe protected rail type, comprising a row of posts 37 placed at the sideof the track of the plant. The feeder system con- 1 sists of onepositive and one negative line on the near side of the posts and inposition for delivering electrical energy, not only to the box-carloader, but also to the screening plant as a whole.

Although the above description describes in considerable detail theexact arrangement or grouping of the several elements and their relativesizes or capacities, it will be understood that changes may be made inthese various features without departing from the spirit of the presentinvention as defined by the appended claim.

That I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent of the UnitedStates is:

In a. portable screening plant, the combination with a receiving hopper,a screen for receiving coal from the said hopper, a spout leading fromthe lower end of said screen, a hopper for receiving coal which haspassed through the screen, an endless conveyer for regulating themovement of the coal over the screen and the conveyer when passing overthe lower end of the screen being supported above the same and spacedtherefrom Jfor the purpose specified.

In witness whereof, I hereunto subscribe my name to this specificationin the presence of two witnesses.

CHARLES s. WILLIAMSON.

wWitnesses:

MYRTLE B. KINNUGAN, (li-IAS. C. BROOKS.

Copies of this patent may ne obtained for ve cents each, by addressingthe Commissioner of Patents,

` Washington, D. C.

